Throughout the years the medical field has utilized various techniques in an effort to join or bond body tissue together. Historically, suturing was the accepted technique for rejoining severed tissues and closing wounds. Suturing is achieved with a surgical needle and a suturing thread, with the intended function of sutures to hold the edges of a wound or tissue against one another during the healing process. Staples are used to replace suturing when joining or anastomosing various body structures, such as, for example, the bowel. The surgical stapling devices employed to apply staples are generally designed to simultaneously cut and seal an extended segment of tissue in a patient.
Linear or annular surgical stapling devices are employed by surgeons to sequentially or simultaneously apply one or more rows of surgical fasteners, e.g., staples, to body tissue for the purpose of joining segments of body tissue together and/or for the creation of an anastomosis. Linear surgical stapling devices generally include a pair of jaws or finger-like structures between which body tissue to be joined is placed. When the surgical stapling device is actuated, firing bars move longitudinally and contact staple drive members in one of the jaws, and surgical staples are pushed through the body tissue and into and against an anvil in the opposite jaw thereby crimping the staples closed. A knife blade may be provided to cut between the rows/lines of staples.
A number of surgical staplers for use in open and endoscopic procedures are known. Some such staplers are operable to clamp down on layers of tissue, cut through the clamped layers of tissue, and drive staples through the layers of tissue to substantially seal the severed layers of tissue together near the severed ends of the tissue layers. Merely exemplary surgical staplers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,805,823, entitled “Pocket Configuration for Internal Organ Staplers,” issued Feb. 21, 1989; U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,334, entitled “Surgical Stapler and Staple Cartridge,” issued May 16, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,895, entitled “Surgical Stapler Instrument,” issued Nov. 14, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,107, entitled “Surgical Stapler Instrument,” issued Jan. 28, 1997; U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,432, entitled “Surgical Instrument,” issued May 27, 1997; U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,840, entitled “Surgical Instrument,” issued Oct. 7, 1997; U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,534, entitled “Articulation Assembly for Surgical Instruments,” issued Jan. 6, 1998; U.S. Pat. No. 5,814,055, entitled “Surgical Clamping Mechanism,” issued Sep. 29, 1998; U.S. Pat. No. 6,978,921, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Incorporating an E-Beam Firing Mechanism,” issued Dec. 27, 2005; U.S. Pat. No. 7,000,818, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Having Separate Distinct Closing and Firing Systems,” issued Feb. 21, 2006; U.S. Pat. No. 7,143,923, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Having a Firing Lockout for an Unclosed Anvil,” issued Dec. 5, 2006; U.S. Pat. No. 7,303,108, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Incorporating a Multi-Stroke Firing Mechanism with a Flexible Rack,” issued Dec. 4, 2007; U.S. Pat. No. 7,367,485, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Incorporating a Multistroke Firing Mechanism Having a Rotary Transmission,” issued May 6, 2008; U.S. Pat. No. 7,380,695, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Having a Single Lockout Mechanism for Prevention of Firing,” issued Jun. 3, 2008; U.S. Pat. No. 7,380,696, entitled “Articulating Surgical Stapling Instrument Incorporating a Two-Piece E-Beam Firing Mechanism,” issued Jun. 3, 2008; U.S. Pat. No. 7,404,508, entitled “Surgical Stapling and Cutting Device,” issued Jul. 29, 2008; U.S. Pat. No. 7,434,715, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument Having Multistroke Firing with Opening Lockout,” issued Oct. 14, 2008; U.S. Pat. No. 7,721,930, entitled “Disposable Cartridge with Adhesive for Use with a Stapling Device,” issued May 25, 2010; U.S. Pat. No. 8,408,439, entitled “Surgical Stapling Instrument with An Articulatable End Effector,” issued Apr. 2, 2013; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,453,914, entitled “Motor-Driven Surgical Cutting Instrument with Electric Actuator Directional Control Assembly,” issued Jun. 4, 2013. The disclosure of each of the above-cited U.S. patents is incorporated by reference herein.
While many of the surgical staplers referred to above are described as being used in endoscopic procedures, it should be understood that such surgical staplers may also be used in open procedures and/or other non-endoscopic procedures. By way of example only, a surgical stapler may be inserted through a thoracotomy, and thereby between a patient's ribs, to reach one or more organs in a thoracic surgical procedure that does not use a trocar as a conduit for the stapler. Such procedures may include the use of the stapler to cut and close a vessel leading to a lung. For instance, the vessels leading to an organ may be severed and closed by a stapler before removal of the organ from the thoracic cavity. Surgical staplers may be used in various other settings and procedures. Examples of surgical staplers that may be particularly suited or use through a thoracotomy are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,186,142, entitled “Surgical Instrument End Effector Articulation Drive with Pinion and Opposing Racks”, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein.
A number of buttresses and tissue thickness compensators which are disposed on tissue and stapled to said tissue are known in the art. A reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 8,657,176 Tissue thickness compensator for a surgical stapler; U.S. Pat. No. 8,746,535 Tissue thickness compensator comprising detachable portions; U.S. Pat. No. 8,864,009 Tissue thickness compensator for a surgical stapler comprising an adjustable anvil; U.S. Pat. No. 9,113,865 Staple cartridge comprising a layer; U.S. Pat. No. 9,168,038 Staple cartridge comprising a tissue thickness compensator; U.S. Pat. No. 9,198,662 Tissue thickness compensator having improved visibility; U.S. Pat. No. 9,220,501 Tissue thickness compensators; U.S. Pat. No. 9,241,714 Tissue thickness compensator and method for making the same; U.S. Pat. No. 8,308,042 Structure for attachment of buttress material to anvils and cartridges of surgical stapler; U.S. Pat. No. 9,113,873 Detachable buttress material retention systems for use with a surgical stapling device.
U.S. Patent publication No. 2014/0239047 ADHERENCE CONCEPTS FOR NON-WOVEN ABSORBABLE FELT BUTTRESSES discloses a surgical stapling apparatus, comprising: a housing; a handle supported by the housing; an elongated body extending distally from the housing; a tool assembly at the distal end of the elongated body, the tool assembly including: a cartridge assembly including a staple cartridge having a tissue facing surface, a plurality of staple retaining pockets and a knife slot formed in the tissue facing surface thereof; a plurality of surgical fasteners loaded one each in the staple retaining pockets; and
an anvil assembly in juxtaposed relation to the cartridge assembly, the anvil assembly including an anvil plate having a tissue facing surface defining a plurality of staple forming pockets and a knife slot therein, at least one of the cartridge assembly or the anvil assembly being movable in relation to the other of the cartridge assembly and the anvil assembly; anda surgical buttress attached to the tissue facing surface of at least one of the cartridge assembly or the anvil assembly, the surgical buttress conforming to the tissue facing surface such that the surgical buttress is deformed locally into the staple retaining pockets and the knife slot of the cartridge assembly or the staple forming pockets and the knife slot of the anvil assembly to which the surgical buttress is attached, thereby increasing the contact area between the surgical buttress and the tissue facing surface.
U.S. Patent publication No. 2013/0062391 SURGICAL INSTRUMENT WITH FLUID FILLABLE BUTTRESS discloses an apparatus, comprising: (a) a surgical cutter comprising a distal end and a proximal end, wherein the proximal end comprises a handle, wherein the distal end comprises an anvil and a lower jaw, wherein the anvil and the lower jaw are configured to clamp tissue, wherein the surgical cutter is configured to sever tissue clamped by the anvil and the lower jaw; and (b) a buttress filled with a liquid, wherein the buttress is configured to be placed between the anvil and the lower jaw, wherein the buttress comprises a compressive portion and a pressure portion, wherein the compressive portion is configured to be squeezed by the distal end of the surgical cutter by the anvil and the lower jaw clamping the compressive portion, wherein the pressure portion is configured to be pressurized with the liquid in response to clamping on the compression portion, wherein the buttress is configured to be severed and stapled by the surgical cutter substantially contemporaneously with when the surgical cutter severs tissue, wherein the pressure portion is configured to urge the liquid through the compressive portion once the buttress is severed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,325,810 FOAM BUTTRESS FOR STAPLING APPARATUS discloses apparatus for hemostasis or pneumostasis of tissue comprising a staple cartridge containing a plurality of surgical staples provided in two spaced apart lines having an upper surface with an opening through which said staples may be ejected, said upper surface having releasably attached thereto a compliant bioabsorbable open cell foam, wherein the open cell foam has at least one surface that has been substantially sealed that is in contact with the upper surface of the cartridge.
Post-operative leakage and delayed healing of the stapled tissue seals, particularly the edges of resected and stapled tissue may lead to morbidity and mortality. The existing staplers, even when pre-loaded with a buttress leave the resected tissue edge exposed resulting in potential blood and or body fluids leakage, infection, and adhesions. There is a need in improving the healing of the resected and stapled tissue to improve the viability of the tissue joined by staples.